The new Colombia: a difficult birth

The new Colombia: a difficult birth

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They tell me I put an overly optimistic tone on my notes. Someone, smilingly reminiscent of my skeptical mood, told me that if I was labelling others as pessimist, it was because they really had to be so, and to a great extent. It seems that the most common position at the moment is one of unbelief, defeatism and rage.

To prove it they bring to mind the facts of the last fortnight. The sentence of the Constitutional Court in relation to the Fast Track, which could lead to ignoring in the Congress the Havana agreements. If things continue this way, they say, amnesty and JEP could be brought to the ground, legal security for ex-guerrillas would disappear.

Added to this is the fact that several soldiers, under the command of a captain, were caught when they entered at midnight in the Temporary Zone of Colinas, Guaviare, with the supposed purpose of recovering a guerrilla who wanted to take advantage of the demobilization plan offered by the Army, although such plans should be abolished and buried.

Or that a deserter sent by the Army to carry out similar tasks, has been captured by members of the FARC in the Temporary Zone of Charras, Guaviare, when he fulfilled the instructions of Major Escallón, paradoxically, Head of Security assigned to the area, under the agreement on the Bilateral and Definitive Ceasefire and end of Hostilities.

The recent captures of three guerrillas, in a mere twenty-four hours, are mentioned. They were detained while fulfilling tasks related to the implementation of the Agreements, and in agreement with what both parties had undersigned, moving thanks to the suspension of the arrest warrants against them and with documents proving this condition.

 

Also the appearance on the sky above the Temproray Zone of Caño Indio, in Tibú, of a military helicopter that flew over half an hour on our heads, in clear violation to what established in the protocols of the Cesafire and End of Hostilities. It cannot be forgotten that this is the Zone were a few days ago Commander Timoleón Jiménez was staying.

Examining those facts together, it can easily be concluded that something is very wrong.

In the first place, they want to impose the thesis according to which the Agreement was a simple political act signed by the President, not binding for the State, subject to modification, revision and even annulment by other public powers. This has its importance.

Secondly, it appears to say that military, police, judicial and even administrative authorities are playing numb when the agreed is sabotaged and affected. It is the narrow mind based on the uribist thesis that the Agreement was actually made by a President who surrendered to the insurgency, and who can be disregarded with impunity.

I think pessimism is wrong. The Havana Agreements are the most important political and juridical fact in the history of our country, at least for the last sixty years. The President of the Republic is by constitutional attribution the Head of State, and at the same time the only power empowered to manage the public order and peace of the country.

The other powers are to collaborate harmoniously in the fulfillment of the highest interest of the nation, peace, a right without which no other is effective. The Havana Agreements have a very special and exceptional character. From there derives the urgency of its full implementation, history can not be stopped.

The war that hit the country for more than half a century, which produced the greatest commotions and alterations of which there is memory in Colombia, has come to an end thanks to these Agreements. The next thing is to build a different, peaceful and democratic country.

Colombians will not allow us to take that opportunity under any pretext.

After every stumbling, important or mean, the parties have sat down to make amends and clear the way. Our claims, because they are right and rooted on reason, have been finally met. Things towards the future will not be different. Mobilization in favor of peace is growing at home and abroad and the international community is ready to help.

We attend the birth of a New Colombia. The strikes in Buenaventura and Chocó, as well as those of teachers and public workers, will necessarily conclude with agreements. The State must comply with them, just as it will have to do with the Havana Agreements. Times changed, gone is the time when people let themselves be mocked, now they will demand what has been agreed.

Which does not mean it will be easy. There are powerful enemies and we will have to fight against them, with a lot of people on our side.

When have we not been threatened and persecuted? We now have the Agreements that strictly prohibit it, which consecrate guarantees and rights, solemnly signed by the State.

We Colombians will make sure they are respected.



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